Experienced Pilots Die in Plane Crash During Historic Spain-to-Senegal Flight

The passion for aviation took Lucien Isnard, 67, and Alain Garnier, 73. These two seasoned pilots had been preparing this raid for several years before joining, on Saturday, September 14, the thirty crews gathered at the starting point, the Toulouse-Francazal Airfield.

On the second stage of the raid they were carrying out on Sunday, September 15 between Castellon de la Plana and Alicante, in southeastern Spain, their aircraft, a Cirrus SR22, crashed 100 kilometers from the airfield where it was supposed to land, in the town of El Pedreguer.

The bad news was announced by the inhabitants of this locality. They alerted the authorities after seeing the aircraft flying "at very low altitude and hearing a very loud noise," according to the Spanish media. The same media report that this tragedy occurred due to the fog that prevailed in the area. As soon as the tragedy was announced, messages poured in on social networks, expressing compassion for the families’ grief.

The Instagram account of Reims Champagne ULM, for its part, evokes the personality of Alain Garnier, a confirmed airplane pilot and ULM instructor at the Reims Champagne ULM club in Prunay for two years: "It is with a heavy heart and tears in our eyes that we learned of the death of one of our instructors, Alain. A pilot dedicated to the club and an extraordinary man."

In their small plane, the two pilots had brought school supplies and books to be distributed in a school in southern Morocco.